‘And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be overawed, from now on you will be taking men alive.” '

And Jesus then gently said to Simon Peter. “Do not be overawed, from now on you will be taking men alive.” It was His call to Peter to follow Him, and both knew it, just as both knew that Peter had had a life-changing experience. And it was an illustration of the fact that his future life was to be involved in ‘netting' men. He was to be a ‘winner of souls'. In the other Gospels the call is put more blatantly, ‘Follow Me.' Both were surely said, for in neither case do we have the full conversations. From now on Jesus was going to train Peter to be a preacher, a catcher of men. And for Peter and the others life would never be the same again.

As we have already seen the picture of men of God as fishermen is found in the Old Testament. The scattered children of Israel were to be gathered by ‘fishermen' fishing them (Jeremiah 16:16). No wonder Jesus chose fishermen. They were skilled at it.

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